Food photography, food styling and creation of soulful recipes

French delicacy: Passionfruit and lemon glaze madeleines

Since my last trip back from France in 2009, I have been crazy about all bakeries and patisseries French. The irony is that, I didn’t try a single piece of patisserie in Paris. No macarons, no madeleines, nothing, not even chocolates. Even when I was in Provence, I only had lots of bread, ice cream and cheeses. But now when I am really obsessed in making French patisseries, I never stop cursing at myself for not savouring a single piece of famed patisseries in France. I did try some in Italy, but they were too sweet for my liking, so I stopped after a while.

I was crazy about the art (and science) of making macarons a few months back (back logged photos to be uploaded later), and I still don’t know how a real Parisian macaron should taste like. And now I’m into the phase of making madeleines, again, without knowing what to expect. My first experience with madeleines turned out a little disappointing, without humps and didn’t quite have the moist and firm texture I was reading about. So the subsequent and this time, I decided to stick to David Lebovitz’s recipe, and everyone knows his recipes are fool proof, and true enough, they turned out perfect this time!

I modified his famed lemon-glazed madeleines to include fresh passionfruit juice in the recipe, just 1 tablespoon to add a little flavour, so that it’s not too overpowering. David’s recipe can be found here.

I have a few other flavours in mind that I would love to experiment, maybe passionfruit poppy seed (inspired by Steve on Flickr), dark molten chocolate with white Belgium chocolate glaze, and tangy lime.

Note: For Malaysians who are not familiar with madeleine, it reminds us of our kuih bahulu, only that madeleine is firmer, more moist and really buttery (and sweeter because of the glaze). The distinctive features of madeleine are the hump (as in whale hump) on one side, and a scalloped surface on the other (without these two features, you can’t call it a madeleine!). It is perfect with tea or coffee…and if you have the urge to dunk it into your tea or coffee, you’re perfectly normal!

These madeleines are available for order (local pick up only). Pricing is RM40 for 12 pcs, also available in orange and lemon zest flavour, and plain lemon zest flavour. Do drop me an email (cyphang@gmail.com) if you are interested! Kindly order 2 – 3 days in advance as I can be very busy at times with my other businesses.

Madeleines in the oven…humps humps humps…yay!

Madeleines piping hot from the oven…

Madeleines cooling

Passionfruit lemon glaze madeleines for morning coffee, they were baked this morning…

About the Author

Sce Hwai PHANG (known and pronounced as C.Y.) is a professional food stylist based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Food and cooking is her biggest passion. Her job revolves around making food look good on camera and print, aside from developing and translating recipes as well as food-related consultation. She also does editorial food photography for magazines, restaurants and food companies occasionally. She is also a Cantonese-Mandarin-Malay-English simultaneous interpreter and accredited professional English><Chinese translator from NAATI (National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters, Australia) . Beside food, her greatest interest is traveling. Visiting various countries on the globe has opened up her vision to a whole new world and is her biggest source of inspiration!

CY can be contacted at cyphang@gmail.com for enquiries on food styling and editorial food photography service.